Learning to walk before I run

cafelady

Hi Ed

I’m delurking to say I enjoy following your diary and I’m sorry things are tough for you and your family atm.

I’m sure you’ve considered this but can you rent out a room to a lodger for a bit, maybe a Postgraduate student, or language students who come for a couple of weeks in the holidays? I believe it’s tax free up to a certain amount although this may be different in Scotland. Or rent out your driveway if you have one? There’s a shortage of accommodation and parking in most major cities and it wouldn’t have to be for ever. 

You’ve probably already thought of these things but thought it worth a mention…

edinburgher

@cafelady - good ideas but all rooms spoken for and we're a bit suburban to rent our driveway

pavlovs_dog

would extending your mortgage term to reduce your payment be a short term option?  You can always drop it right back down when rates improve and your childcare cost burden is less. 

You seem to respond well to gameification, you could challenge yourself to OP enough to recoup the 'lost years' and get your balance back in line with your original mortgage term when your finances have a bit more breathing space.

savingholmes

Sorry it's tough right now.

I agree with Pavlov's suggestion. You are good at gamification. 

edinburgher

A comment from @Suffolk_lass made me think the other day, along the lines of options for WTSHTF. She was talking about finances more generally, but it made me think about the concept of being beholden to our jobs and living with the background fear that we need to tolerate whatever crap we're subjected to because we don't have any choice. It's also written about very well by George Orwell and Jacob Lund Fisker in "Early Retirement Extreme".

Like so many things in daily life, it's about money and a feared future lack of it.

To that end, I've opened a Zopa savings pot with the name "WTSHTF". It's a fixed rate with 31 days notice, which would roughly correspond to the usual notice period. It may end up becoming largely symbolic but I am sick and tired of the feeling of not having options to obtain any breathing space. I stuck in a fiver from my personal spends account, not feeling particularly flush at the moment

Big email at work was responded to with a bit of denial, some platitudes and *almost* complete failure to engage with any of the points raised. I tried. I'm not working to rule, but I'll do my usual job and if I start getting any nonsense re. arbitrary targets, I'll speak to my union rep. I'm going to leave it for now, there's not much more I can do in the short term. I am aware that multiple peers also spoke up with similar views at a recent meeting.

I ordered new sim cards for Mrs E and I at the weekend. They will take us down to less than a tenner a month between us and we'll also get free Disney+ Only saves £2-3/mth, but DD1 will enjoy Disney and we can catch up on some Star Wars series

Baileys_Babe

It is better the £2-3 a month is available for you to choose how to use it.

We have Disney+ and watch it much more than I thought we would. We often have family film night where we all sit down and watch the film (often with homemade popcorn), their are various series we have watched together. Also their is plenty I watch with just OH, or the children watch by themselves or OH watches with the children and my Dad. Once it's goes live at your house spend some time having a good look and you may be pleasantly surprised.

If you make occasional watching times more of an event it will stretch your entertainment budget. Great advantages of having the cinema at home are the little one can play with quieter toys on the floor in front of you whilst your older daughter can be watching the film/program with you, also you can have intermissions as frequently as needed whether that is for toilet breaks, to fetch more refreshments or to explain a plot point without anybody missing the film.

BTW my children are both teenagers. On our last film night they choose to watch Atlantis: The Lost Empire 😊 as well as enjoying the film, afterwards the eldest shared lots of technical detail regarding the animation style.

I like your WTSHTF pot and I am considering copying it, I have no idea where the funds will come from, I need to have a think about it 🤔

savingholmes

Well done on the savings pot.

edinburgher

@Baileys_Babe - your movie nights sound lovely. We're not as organised when it comes to watching as a family, but having a baby in the house is a valid excuse. It tends to be DD1 and I when her sister is being put to bed Still, we should really make the effort, we all love the cinema and I do have a popcorn maker!

To be honest, I don't have a lot of money for a WTSHTF pot either. We currently get a relatively generous amount in our personal spends account each month but this is soon to be slashed (as described in an earlier post). It has to cover a lot of things - a personal credit card balance, presents, contribution to days out and holidays, clothing, any alcohol or snacks at the weekend etc. What I've considered doing is trying to do personal no spend days and adding the money not spent to the pot. Like today I had c. £120 left, of which I moved a fiver to the pot. Hopefully Prolific and my quarterly Feed in Tariff payments will keep me from becoming entirely skint.

I may also start moving a small amount to the pot from my wages (say 12% of any overtime earnings). This will help to cushion us from bill shock as/when overtime is no longer available and will be like a pension payment of sorts (overtime doesn't increase my pension).

Right - onwards and upwards! DD1 has the fracture clinic and Mrs E has accidentally bent a cupboard door hinge by forcing the door closed onto a solid object - there goes my lunch break

killerpeaty

You are going through it. I think you're doing so well, especially as you have not been overly happy with your job for a while now.

It's rough when you have to downsize your life, you get used to the way you live and it feels like you're going backwards.  

edinburgher

@killerpeaty - thank you You're not wrong re. work. It has sucked for a long time (Mrs E used the expression "toxic" (while simultaneously pointing out the fact that she thinks it is overused)). Enjoying the material benefits of increased wages and overtime was helping to cushion the annoyance of that. It feels a little bit like the legs have been kicked out from under us.

I know we will survive, there were parts of my childhood where we were probably verging on poor (living on donated vegetables, that sort of thing), we survived and had a reasonably happy time of it